In July 1954 the French premier, Pierre Mendès-France, promised to grant complete autonomy to Tunisia, subject to a negotiated agreement. Bourguiba returned to Tunisia and was able to supervise the negotiations without directly participating. In June 1955 an agreement was finally signed by the Tunisian delegates though it imposed strict limits in the fields of foreign policy, education, defense, and finance and a mainly Neo-Destour ministry was formed. Salah Ben Youssef denounced the document, saying it was too restrictive and refused to attend a specially summoned congress that unanimously supported Bourguiba. In response, he organized a brief armed resistance in the south that was quickly put down. Ben Youssef fled the country to escape imprisonment; he was assassinated in 1961.

Post-Colonial History 

Independence

The French granted full independence to Tunisia in an accord that was reached on March 20, 1956, and Bourguiba was chosen as Prime Minister. The rule of the beys was subsequently abolished, and on July 25, 1957, a republic was declared with Bourguiba as president.

Domestic Development

After independence was granted, the Neo-Destour Party (from 1964 to 1988, the Destourian Socialist Party; from 1988, the Democratic Constitutional Rally [RDI]) ensured that Tunisia move quickly with reforms, most notably in the areas of education, the liberation of women, and legal reforms. Economic development was slower, but the government paid considerable attention to the more impoverished parts of the country. In 1961 Ahmad Ben Salah took charge of planning and finance. His ambitious efforts at forced-pace modernization, especially in agriculture, were foiled, however, by rural and conservative opposition. Expelled from the party and imprisoned in 1969, Ben Salah escaped in 1973 to live in exile. His fall brought a move in the government toward more conservative alignment.

In 1975 the Chamber of Deputies unanimously bestowed the presidency for life on the sick and aging Habib Bourguiba, who centralized power under his progressive but increasingly personalized rule. Hedi Amira Nouira, noted for his financial and administrative skills, became prime minister in November 1970; his government, however, failed to resolve the economic crisis or address growing demands for reform from liberals in his own party. A decade later, the ailing Nouira was replaced by Muhammad Mzali, who made efforts to restore dissidents to the party and, by 1981, granted amnesty to many who had been jailed for earlier disturbances. In addition, he persuaded Bourguiba to accept a multiparty system (although only one opposition party was actually legalized).

The outcome of the elections in November 1981 was disappointing to those who sought political liberalization. The National Front, an alliance of the Destourian Socialist Party and the trade union movement, swept all 136 parliamentary seats, a result received with cynicism and dismay by the opposition. Meanwhile, an Islamist opposition was developing around the Islamic Tendency Movement (MTI). By 1984 Bourguiba saw an Islamist hand behind riots and demonstrations protesting rising prices. In response, he sent in the army and initiated a fierce campaign against the MTI. Bourguiba's long rule, widely popular in its early years except among traditionalist groups, had provoked an increasing but passive opposition among Tunisians.

Bourguiba, long in declining health, became unable to mask his autocratic tendencies. National elections in 1986 were boycotted by the major opposition parties, and the National Front once again carried the vote. In November 1987, amid widespread unrest and growing Islamist support, Bourguiba was declared mentally unfit to rule and was removed from office. He was succeeded by General Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, whom he had appointed as Prime Minister a month earlier.

President Ben Ali promised political liberalization and a transition to democracy. His early reforms attempted to restore a national consensus; one of these, the National Pact signed in 1989, drew together the ruling party, the legal opposition, the Islamists, and all the national organizations. Many political parties were legalized, with the exception of the MTI (renamed Al-Nahda), but the 1989 national elections still failed to introduce a multiparty competition. The president gained 99 percent of the vote, and the RDI won all 141 seats in the legislature. Local elections in 1990, boycotted by opposition parties, were also swept by the ruling party. Following early local electoral victories by Algerian Islamists in 1990 and Islamist opposition to the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the government began to crack down on Islamist political activity.

Despite the initial easing of press controls and the release of political prisoners, the opposition soon became disillusioned with the new regime. Subsequently, it turned against secular opposition and has since been criticized for its abuse of human rights and its reliance on military and security forces. Piecemeal electoral reforms have failed to produce any genuine form of power sharing or transfer of power away from the president's party. Similarly, the media and national organizations and associations have lost much of what little autonomy they wrested from the state, and Ben Ali's regime has increasingly been subject to accusations of authoritarianism. The government, for its part, has claimed that democratization must be a gradual process that cannot be allowed to destabilize or inhibit the processes of economic liberalization and social consolidation.